How the Twins and Their Pitchers Use Spring Training to Prepare for the Season - Caretaker Exclusive

[Parker Hageman]

We often mistake routine for inaction. Let's stop doing that. What do the Twins do with their pitchers during spring training, and how does it get them ready for Opening Day?

Image courtesy of © Jonah Hinebaugh/Naples Daily News/USA Today Network-Florida / USA TODAY NETWORK

As spring training season kicks into gear, the Minnesota Twins' pitchers are honing their craft with a meticulously planned routine to optimize performance for the upcoming season. While the casual observer might only catch glimpses of players on the field during games, the behind-the-scenes regimen is organized to ensure peak physical condition and mental acuity. Let's delve into what, precisely, the pitchers' spring training schedule entails and the objectives they aim to accomplish.

At the core of the Twins pitchers' spring training routine is a structured three-day throwing cycle. The cycle consists of one side day (a bullpen with just a catcher or a live session with a hitter in the box) and two non-side days. This cycle is a common practice to ensure pitchers can maintain their skills. 

"This is what spring training is for. It's just kind of getting us broken in," said incoming reliever Josh Staumont. Staumont, who spent his career in the Royals organization, said this program is nothing new. "A three-day kind of thing that's just the standard practice field."

Staumont added that pitchers might work toward a four-day cycle later in camp, including back-to-back live side days to replicate getting called to pitch in consecutive games. However, the three-day schedule is king as arms are ramping at the beginning of spring.

During "side" days, not in-game action, pitchers focus primarily on bullpen sessions or live batting practice (BP). Side days are the time for pitchers to fine-tune their mechanics, work on specific pitches, and simulate game-like scenarios under the guidance of pitching coaches. The bullpen sessions allow pitchers to concentrate on their individual needs, whether that be refining their fastball command, perfecting the break on their curveball, or experimenting with new pitch grips.

These bullpen sessions also have a Fogo De Chao amount of technology involved. There are cameras, Trackman units, and biomechanical tools. Everything (seen and unseen) is measured. Collecting data is essential for pitchers working on a new pitch, or refining an existing one. When the Twins asked Pablo López to add a sweeper to his arsenal, they were looking for a precise amount of break, spin direction, and velocity. It was in spring training sides that he honed those. This process is vital in a strong pipeline of developing pitchers. 

"You see some of these young pitchers who have interesting pitches, interesting skills or traits, maybe velo, maybe something with the two-seamer, something with the slider. But the difference between a successful major-league pitcher with that talent and a guy who's right on the edge of that is so, so thin," Derek Falvey told reporters early in camp. "We've found that if you can find a way to get a little more consistency out of the strike-throwing or a little more consistency out of the slider, whatever you've got that separates you, all of a sudden it turns into something."

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[JD-TWINS]

Interesting set of details in the article & good blend of player’s point of view! Good read…. Hoping for a whole bunch of options going into April from both the Pen & Rotation. 

[IndyTwinsFan]

A very interesting read!

[Rod Carews Birthday]

It’s not thrilling.  It’s not sexy.  But it sure is necessary.  It’s a long season and if we want our pitchers to stay healthy and productive, getting them into this maintenance pattern is absolutely essential.  

Since this type of routine seems to be pretty universal among teams, I would be curious is there are any individual pitchers out there who do something radically different, just because that’s what they need/are used to doing.  I also wonder how much/little this has changed from back in Bert Blyleven’s days with the team.  

[Parker Hageman]

On 2/24/2024 at 9:35 AM, Rod Carews Birthday said:

Since this type of routine seems to be pretty universal among teams, I would be curious is there are any individual pitchers out there who do something radically different, just because that’s what they need/are used to doing.  I also wonder how much/little this has changed from back in Bert Blyleven’s days with the team.  

I'll start with the last part first: The main difference between Blyleven's days and now is that a lot of the guess work has been taken out.

Rather than pitchers feeling their way through bullpens with a pitching coach, they have the cameras and data and, hell, an entire development staff dedicated to trying to optimize each pitcher. Frank Viola talked about discovering his changeup after trying 12+ grips over a course of a few seasons. That process is shaved down to several bullpen sessions since they can capture seam direction, spin rate, and a slo-mo of the release. 

Plus, they now have a much, much more detailed plan for ramping but also, in talking with retired pitchers, there used to be the notion that spring training was the time to shake off rust. They stayed off the mound for longer stretches in the offseason. (This could be a good/bad thing.) Pitchers now have offseason schedules that include plenty of live bullpens designed to ramp them into the spring (as opposed to using the P&Cs reporting as the starting line). 

But across the game now, I do feel that we've reached a point that most organizations do similar ramping things (as I discussed in the article). Teams have different ways of capturing, distilling, and disseminating the information to players. Teams have different emphasis too. The Twins have done a lot more of streamlining mechanics, both in the way pitchers uses their lower half and how their arm spiral functions, to try to gain a little velo and command consistency. 

Driveline, Tread, & the Baseball Ranches (TX & FL), have permeated so much of the game that the vast majority of pitchers are following routines that once were thought of as weird. Kyle Gibson came into camp a few years back after developing with the Florida Ranch and was using the throwing sock, connection ball, and other things that are now almost universal in the game but it was thought of as out of the ordinary at that time. 

I don't know who the outliers are anymore. If someone starting throwing a bullpen with a parachute attached to his arm, I don't know if anyone would bat an eye anymore after some of the other things became common practice. 

[Rod Carews Birthday]

11 hours ago, Parker Hageman said:

IPlus, they now have a much, much more detailed plan for ramping but also, in talking with retired pitchers, there used to be the notion that spring training was the time to shake off rust. They stayed off the mound for longer stretches in the offseason. (This could be a good/bad thing.) Pitchers now have offseason schedules that include plenty of live bullpens designed to ramp them into the spring (as opposed to using the P&Cs reporting as the starting line). 

Thanks for the info.  Nice concise summary of a complicated scenario.  The technology and changes certainly can account from some of the skepticism from old, retired pitchers about today’s players.  Change (and what they don’t understand well) can lead to that.   

I think you are right to question whether the lack of time off in the offseason is a good or bad thing.  I get the benefits of not having to shake the rust off during spring training, but I also wonder if that time off to rest didn’t prolong the careers of many past pitchers in the league.  It’s also hard to know whether the prevalence of TJ injuries/surgeries represents entirely new injuries or whether many of the career ending injuries of the past were actually the same but labeled as “dead arm” or “blown out arm”.  There are always going to be outliers of guys who could pitch well in their old age (Neikro, Verlander, Ryan), but most don’t get there.